The American Black Film Festival Offers Studios Year-Round Opportunity To Reach Festival Audiences With Expansion Of Its Content Platform ABFF PLAY

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentReims Polar, a new international festival set in Northern France and dedicated to police thrillers, has awarded Wen Shipei’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?,” Adikhan Yerzhanov’s “Assault” and Lado Kvataniya’s “The Execution.” The selection of Reims Polar is curated by Bruno Barde, who is also the artistic director of the Deauville American Film Festival. “Assault,” a dead-pan thriller set fictional village in rural Kazakhstan and revolving around a school hostage situation, won the festival’s Grand Prize Award.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentAs the Cannes Film Festival will announce its Official Selection on Thursday, Variety is starting to get a slightly clearer picture of what 75th edition will look like, though fewer titles than usual have leaked. Led by Cannes’ artistic director and general delegate Thierry Fremaux, the selection committee has been flooded with late submissions and is now in the thick of deliberations.Most surprisingly, according to two well-informed sources, there will even be a David Lynch feature film which has been completely off the radar and stars Laura Dern — either as a cameo or a supporting role — along with some other Lynch regulars.We already know the sun-dappled celebration will land several high-profile films from U.S.

Coldplay have added new South American dates to their huge eco-friendly world tour for new album ‘Music For The Spheres’ – see the updated schedule below.The band’s 2022 world stadium tour comes with an emphasis on environmental sustainability, and began with a gig at the Estadio Nacional in the Costa Rican capital San Jose last month (March 18) – see what went down here.North American dates for the tour kick off later this month, with European dates beginning in July and UK dates in August, including six shows at London’s Wembley Stadium.The band have now announced that they’ll head back to South America in September and October, adding six more shows to the run.Coldplay will be joined by Camila Cabello and H.E.R.

J. Kim Murphy Joseph Patel, a producer on the Oscar-winning documentary “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” has blasted Chris Rock for his presentation of the category during Sunday’s ceremony, in which Rock introduced Patel and the producers other than Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson as a group of “four white guys.”“The reason that makes me SO SO VERY ANGRY is because I was so proud to be one of a handful of South Asians to have ever won an Oscar in the history of the award,” Patel wrote in a Twitter thread airing his frustrations on Wednesday evening.

making a joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith's hair loss during the Oscars. Reports now suggest that Rock didn't know about Jada's alopecia.

The 8th Annual Women’s Voices Now Film Festival: The Rights and Roles of Women: Redefining Our Shared Reality is in the books and the winning films have been selected by our jury: 

Wilson Chapman editorThe Indian Film Festival Los Angeles has announced the programming lineup for its 2022 edition, which includes Pan Nalin’s “Last Film Show” as a gala presentation.The festival, which spotlights films made about the Indian diaspora from filmmakers of Indian heritage, will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year with a return to in-person screenings for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the course of the festival, 10 feature films and 16 short films will be screened, including a world premiere and two North American premieres.“Reflecting on IFFLA’s 20 years, we find ourselves overjoyed by the range of incredible talent we have discovered and celebrated, introducing numerous emerging and established voices to Los Angeles,” IFFA executive director and founder Christina Marouda said in a statement.

LIVE – Updated at 13:21This year’s Oscars featured shocks, sighs and surprises – but all anyone will care about is a slap. The Academy Awards took place on Sunday night, with films including The Power of the Dog, West Side Story, Licorice Pizza and Coda battling it out in the big categories. The biggest story of the night had almost nothing to do with the awards: a shocking altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock sparked by a joke about Smith’s wife Jada.

Chris Willman Music WriterFor years, the Stagecoach Festival in Indio has had a side stage, dubbed the Palomino tent, that is a virtual festival-within-a-festival, focusing on alternative country, Americana and heritage country acts, “cred” artists that tend to draw a largely different audience than the larger one that stays at the mainstream main stage all day. This summer, Goldenvoice is branching off that approach into a one-day gathering of its own — the Palomino Festival — set to go down for the first time July 9 in Pasadena.Kacey Musgraves, Willie Nelson & Family and Jason Isbell are newly announced as the headliners for the inaugural event, which will take place at Brookside at the Rose Bowl, a park adjacent to the storied stadium that Goldenvoice has used for a number of other genre-specific festivals in the last decade.

This is the moment Will Smith interrupted the Oscars and hit comedian Chris Rock. Will Smith hit Chris Rock in the face on stage after the comedian made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s haircut. Smith walked up on stage and appeared to hit Rock before returning to his seat and shouting: “Keep my wife’s name out of your f****** mouth.

WATCH: Will Smith appears to punch Chris Rock at the OscarsDuring the 2022 Oscars, Will Smith walked up on stage and hit Chris Rock across the face before returning to his seat and yelling: "leave my wife's name out your f---ing mouth."In the American broadcast the language was muted just in time, based on footage shared by US publications such as Variety, but not here in Australia.The on-stage altercation came while Chris was presenting an award and made a joke at the expense of Will's wife Jada Pinkett Smith. Chris made a joke about Jada appearing in a GI Jane sequel.The joke in question referred to the 1997 Demi Moore movie GI Jane, where the actress shaved her head.

Will Smith appeared to punch Chris Rock in the face on stage during the Oscars after the comedian made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair. Referring to Pinkett Smith’s buzzcut, Rock said: “Jada, can’t wait for GI Jane 2.”

Ed Meza @edmezavarWith its focus on Costa Rica, the Málaga Festival Industry Zone (MAFIZ) is showcasing the central American country’s bourgeoning film sector and talent with presentations of feature films, works in progress, projects in development and the country’s scenic locations and support opportunties.Costa Rican filmmakers and their projects are participating in MAFIZ’s various sections, including the Malaga Festival Fund & Co-Production Event (MAFF); Málaga Work in Progress; Málaga Talent and Hack Málaga.Nicole Chi’s documentary “Guián” and Daniel Ross Mix’s “El Zoológico de la Milla 70” (“70 Mile Zoo”) are the two Costa Rican projects taking part in the Work in Progress section. In “Guián,” Chi chronicles her own personal journey of discovery as she travels to China following the death of her grandmother Guián.

2022 Malaga Festival Lineup:Main Competition“Emperor Code,” (“Código Emperador,” Jorge Coira, Vaca Films, Playtime, Spain)The Malaga Fest opener, a noirish crime thriller with special services operative Luis Tosar moonlighting for the elite, here trying to dig up the dirt on a young politico. Segueing rapidly to Netflix after an A Contracorriente release in Spain.“A Mae,” (Cristiano Burlan, Brazil) The latest from the prolific Brazilian narrative and doc director, maker of euthanasia-themed “Antes do fim,” and 2015’s “Hunger.” In it, a humble street vendor mother searches desperately for her missing son, claiming the right to at least bury his body.

Angelique Jackson The Minions are back — and celebrating with a splashy world premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.The long-awaited “Minions” sequel, dubbed “The Rise of Gru” will open the festival with a screening on Monday, June 13 in the Grande Salle de Bonlieu.The next chapter in the “Despicable Me” film franchise tells the backstory of how Gru — the world’s greatest supervillain — met his Minions, forming “cinema’s most despicable crew” and facing off against the criminal supergroup, the Vicious 6.“The Minions franchise is inextricably linked to Annecy,” stated Marcel Jean, the festival’s artistic director. “As early as 2010, ‘Despicable Me’ made its mark at the event, and since then each film in the series has started its success here.

Brent Renaud, an acclaimed filmmaker who traveled to some of the darkest and most dangerous corners of the world for documentaries that transported audiences to little-known places of suffering, died Sunday after Russian forces opened fire on his vehicle in Ukraine.